Newhive Pages

Photo Project: Bedroom Candids #2

So here's the continuation of this project. I like the photos that show my tiredness and skin depression and messy/greasy hair. And it's evident which trousers I wear literally all the time. It's nice, the realness of what I look like in these moments by myself. We have a huge culture now of online sharing, but we still tend to stick behind a certain accepted way of presenting, because naturally most of us want to look our best. But who says this isn't my best? Who decides that every moment isn't my best? In every moment I am myself, after all.

Photo Project: Bedroom Candids

I've been wanting to do a simple photo portrait project like this for a while but I guess I thought I wouldn't be able to take very appealing photos with the way my bedroom is set up so I avoided it. I decided to try it though and I like the mundanity of these shots, the greyness of them. The massive square of light intruding from the window like this big, bright thing kept just separate from me in my room. I don't know, I like lots about this, and it's another thing I could very easily continue with and build up a big time lapse series with. I'm not sure how else to progress with this, but for now I will just to continue with it and build up a series.

(Almost) Daily Newhive Pages Update

So I'm creating collages roughly each day on Newhive at the moment, including a one take vocal cover of a song autoplaying on each page. I think these are pretty effective as snippets, and I'm treating them more directly like diary entries by collaging photos I've taken that day with pictures I've seen that day, some inspiration from that day, as well as in my most recent page some text examining something of my thought processes, again on that day. So it's very much another diary-like project. I think the text really gives this entry more depth, so I will be continuing to use text like this. The key strength of this project, I think, will be the cumulative aspect of the collection of entries. They are reasonably small collages, like snippets of life (I like this and really particularly wan to keep this aspect, so I hope it will be appealing to an audience in this form), but altogether should build up an impressive database and unusual digital diary. Approx. 3 months worth of pages should look pretty decent by the time the degree shoe rolls around.

I do need to think about how I might display it, given that it involves a lot of sound and needs to be interactive so people can click through the chain of pages. The obvious choice would be to display it on a computer, but I'm not keen on leaving my only laptop in the exhibition since I need to use it for work and projects and things, so I'm not what options will be available.

Further progress & experimentation with this project - I could try to implement more video and personal drawings, overlay more images, use more moving images/glitter images, make my pages denser, etc. There's lots to play around with, so I definitely need to explore that as much as I can.

The screenshots in this post include 4 entries. You can see them all on my main Newhive page here, and watch out when you click through to the actual project pages because they have autoplaying songs.

Hell My Friend: Newhive Pages & Action Plan

I made a new Newhive page (click here, but be warned - it autoplays me singing Britney Spears). So I've played with Newhive a bit before, but I think I have an idea which brings back the 'new entry every day' concept I used as part of my 360 book. I liked that concept a lot and the way it recorded time in a consistent way, and I figure if I make a new Newhive page every day it will:

1. allow me to continue with that sort of incremental record of the passing of time
2. build up until a sizeable collection of pages by the time we get to the degree show

It also I think intuitively feels more loose and personal and candid than the 360 book because I can combine my drawings, pictures, and all sorts of visual things, but also I can have music and movement, which obviously was not possible in a book. This is a big advantage to creating some sort of digital landscape. There is a much bigger scope for what I can do and what kind of atmosphere I can create. I also really like the idea of simply recording myself gently singing well known songs and autoplaying a song on each page. The lone vocal with reverb makes for a really soothing and intimate atmosphere.

I'm not sure how I would show my Newhive pages given that it needs to be clearly interactive, so that's something I'll have to figure out.

MOTHS: A Poem

I wrote a poem for the purpose of exploring potential performance options as I've been advised to look into adding a performative aspect and dimension to my work.

My poem is called MOTHS and can be listened to here.

I wanted it to be cryptic and dense and filled with imagery from pop culture, sensory experience, and insects. I also wanted to include singing parts to break up the poem into something with more tonal variety, and at the same time just to bring it fully into the pop sphere (the poem includes sections from One Direction, Taylor Swift, and Britney Spears songs.

It has a very furious, feverish feel the way I've read it here, which I think (hope) would be very engaging (and hopefully even mesmerising) performed. I am interested in having a hypnotic effect of some kind on an audience as that would really allow me to take control of their senses and make them feel odd, thus drawing into my world via that altered sensation.

IDEAS:

I would possibly like to write a very long poem that could become quite a big (although intimate) performance/reading. I am unsure whether to combine this with other media or if it would be best suited on its own - mad and stark against a background of blankness.

full poem as of now:

MOTHS
the hearts align,
squashed together,
bleeding into each other,
not like a metaphor,
pushed up close like a scrotum on a window,
all soft and folded,
like a bedsheet but pulsing,
I know that feeling,
like your skin is strobing,
disco sensation,
lampshades are like bodies,
high and bright,
round and waving,
I love flying into both,
bruising lampshades,
kicking bulbs,
loke mate I ain't here for a sausage roll,

Ed Sheeran and chips,
dripping nice and heavy nice and slow,
mud pies for breakfast all balanced on the window,
the smell of grass is in my mouth,
I smell like flowers and I taste like milk,
heaven is in one direction
[sung] do you remember summer '09 wanna go back like pressing rewind

snakes and birds of prey sit on the little mountain and sing,
they love east 17 and missy elliot,
my alcopop has spilled on the floor but everything is bliss,
my toes are midnight blue,
the stars are inside them,
the stars are in your eyes,
the stars are in your toes

I am all moths,
I eat your clothes,
your pocket's in my mouth,
detergent sandwiches for supper,
[sung] you got that long hair slicked back white t-shirt and I got that
insect hunger for your delicious worn elastic
[sung] oh baby baby how was I supposed to know
the threads have frayed to dust,
with a faint smell of Lynx and Geri Halliwell,
how can I tell what the moon smells like?!
well I ask

JENNIFER LOPEZ LOLLIPOP: an art book

I am in the process of making a small art book, which I'll call a prototype as I am making it relatively quickly in order to test the book form as an exhibiting method for my assessment next week. The book is a6 in size and made from folded and stapled a5 notebook pages. On constructing this book I feel the form is a really successful way to contain and display the "world" of my paintings. It allows me to be less insular by way of inviting people inside the book, so they are taking part instead of merely being spectators of a series of paintings. I hope that by presenting work as a book it will allow my work to become part of other people's inner worlds.

The hurried fashion I am making this in is actually useful to me as it allows (or forces?) me to act in a very reckless manner with my depictions, brush strokes, colour choices, pen marks, etc, which creates an impatient and flawed aesthetic which I find appropriate. We are all dying.

action plan & what I have learnt recently

I realise that I've been sorely lacking in thinking about what my work is and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to do the library exhibition because it's shown me just how rewarding experimentation and contextualising my work is. I've been doing flat, small paintings lately (see images below) and nothing new has been happening. I haven't been progressing and considering exciting new modes and plans and it's really disappointing to face that considering how much the DAS essay and the exhibition have offered in terms of understanding and elaborating on my own work.

I recognise this, however, and am going to make a big effort in setting up a routine for myself to actively experiment, reflect, and contextualise my work and it's formal elements.

The flat paintings I've been making on a5 lined paper (such as those above) have allowed me to test colours, and have been an important part of my pre-library work as colour was an important component of the pieces exhibited.

I have tested and found beautiful colour and texture combinations (above) and have made many paintings and drawings of my typical character (below), slowly perfecting and adapting my ideal cartoon form.

I must concentrate now on drawing from artists, shows, documentaries, and endless things around me to refine my message and form, as well as further exploring the possibilities for exhibiting my physical work and which form it should assume for the right impact and audience involvement.

My favourite art pieces are often posted here, so you can look back through a time frame on those pages and get a good idea of the forms I am using and playing with across weeks and months.

Library exhibition prep - my work

For my cabinet exhibition in the library I want to show both my own work and something from Wimbledon's archives. I wanted to figure out a piece of work to make that would be more 3d than a simple painting, so I tried making sculptures with foam, just odd shapes. The idea was that each sculpture would represent a future - strange, unwieldy, and unknown. I wanted to try out something I wasn't really used to. I don't like the sculptures I ended up making because they look garish and random with no formalistic sense of underlying structure. It was valuable to attempt though. I also made some small paintings of children because I had the idea of making some very small paintings and putting them in clunky diy cardboard frames, reminiscent of small children's school craft projects. I tried a few different ways/types of painting and ultimately decided my small painting & cardboard frame idea was my favourite. I will make a series of these and use them as my piece in the finalised exhibition.

these are the paintings I decided to frame with chunky decorated cardboard (this is the only process picture I have for them right now!)

happy

http://newhive.com/mothcub/happy

So I'm experimenting with newhive pages as a display option. Here I've integrated two simple images and a small piece of audio. This is exactly the kind of framework I want to use, just to have images/sounds/videos fill a webpage, like an online collage with the added depth of sound and/or movement.

poster paints r cool

These are all slightly self-portraits made with v. colourful poster paints. I think number 3 is my favourite. I'm going to make them a great big gang and put together on a webpage where they look menacing/adorable together.